There are many reasons a person might want to ban glitter. Like, they happened to brush against a drag queen at a party one night, and now their bed is covered in glitter, they keep finding it in their eyebrows, and bits of it continue cropping up for weeks despite serious efforts to eradicate the sparkle infestation.

Now, an environmental anthropologist at Massey University is calling for all the glamour to be gone: She wants glitter to go the way of the Dodo and Dorian Corey.

“When people think about glitter they think of party and dress-up glitter,” Dr. Farrelly says. “But glitter includes cosmetic glitters as well, the more everyday kind that people don’t think about as much.”

“No one knows that glitter is made of plastic,” says Noemi Lamma, a co-founder of Eco Glitter Fun, an “eco-friendly glitter distributor.

“We were heartbroken when we found out.”

Banning cosmetic glitter and microbeads is a “no-brainer,” according to Dr. Ferrelly.

“I’m sick and tired of consumers being held responsible for trying to avoid this stuff,” she says. “I mean it’s literally impossible to. Producers need to be responsible. They need to use safer, non-toxic, durable alternatives.”

What’s your take on glitter? Should it be banned for good, or does that mean the party’s over? Sound off in the comments below!

Creamsicle

Kangol

Gay Scottish Guy

I think the title on this one is slightly misleading. It somewhat gives off the idea that scientists want to ban it because it’s a “quintessential gay accessory”, though I’m sure that’s not intentional.

OzJosh

I’m going to be generous here and assume Queerty was trying to put a light-hearted spin on this in order to engage readers with a serious problem. But a little more detail and depth would have helped. The problem here is these tiny plastic particles get washed into rivers and oceans and consumed by all kinds of living creatures. In some cases it eventually kills them, if only because filling up on plastic means they’re not getting proper nutrition. Moreover, the much of the seafood you eat (especially seafood that filters water, like mussels) is now full of these plastic particles – and nobody knows just what damage they could do to humans.

Mr-DJ

baggins435

Someone needs to get out more if they think glitter is a “quintessential gay accessory” just because some drag queens and effeminate twinks think it’s “kewl.” Grade school and middle school girls like glitter. My nieces gave it up before high school at the latest. Gay MEN have nothing to do with it. Queerty is becoming less and less relevant to me as a gay man. Just come out already and admit you’re by and for twinks and effeminate boys in “guyliner”, glitter, and skinny jeans with no room for a man’s junk.

ham

jay_kay

phallictomato

Seeing how glitter is literally a micro plastic and how it’s destroying the ocean’s creatures, I think it needs to go. As much as I love glitter, if it doesn’t disintegrate and isn’t environmentally friendly, I can live without it. I’m sure someone, somewhere, will be able to come up with a sparkly alternative that disintegrates and would be safe even if accidentally swallowed. I mean we have 7+ billion people in the world. I’m actually surprised there hasn’t been an environmentally safe glitter alternative already… better yet, make the alternative glitter edible too.